Fired Up (2009)

Directed by Will Gluck
Starring Nicholas D'Agosto, Eric Olsen, John Michael Higgins, Sara Roemer
Rated PG-13
USA

"Well, you know what John Lennon once said..."
"No, I don't. I'm not 50. I could ask my dad."

The latter half of the 00's has seen a resurgence in the classic teen sex comedy. Spawned largely by the success of Superbad (2007) and bolstered by the depression and malaise of a failing US economy - escapism is always big in trying times - the modern T.S.C. has two standards modes of operation: the balls-out raunch-fest (College, Sex Drive, 18 Year Old Virgin) and the PG-13 rated, tits-free teasers (The House Bunny, The Hottie and the Nottie). Fired Up attempts to straddle both worlds. On the one hand, there's no nudity, and nobody says "Fuck". On the other hand, the film is specifically about banging cheerleaders, and there's one flagship scene that involves an entire squad rehearsing in their bras and panties. And as we all know, cheerleaders in their underwear equals regular girls naked. So you almost don't notice the tween-baiting emasculation of the PG rating.

Shawn (Nicholas D'Agosto) and Nick (Eric Olsen) are football stars at Gerald Ford High School. By default, this also makes them cocksmen and cads. Indeed, when we first meet them, they've already slept with most of the girls at Gerald Ford, and are looking for fresh meat. It's the end of their junior year, and they're expected to spend the next two weeks at football camp. This year, they're supposed to travel to Texas, and practice their runs and tackles under a merciless summer sun. They are really not into it.

Nick comes up with the capital idea to join their school's failing cheer-squad, the Tigers, so that they can attend a three-week cheer camp, where they are very likely to be the only hetero males among 300 young and agile girls. Clearly, the sexual possibilities are limitless in this scenario. Luckily for our lads, their school's cheer squad, the Tigers are currently last place in the Nationals, largely because they have no strapping young men in their ranks to toss them around effectively. A couple penises in the mix would surely help out their cause. First, however, they have to find a way out of football camp. No easy feat, when your growling, foul-mouthed coach is Phillip Baker Hall (AKA Mr. Bookman, the library cop from Sienfield). They make up the usual cockamamie stories about dying grandmothers and beg off the Texas trip. Next, they have to talk their way onto the squad. Head cheerleader Carly (Sara Roemer) is, not surprisingly, wary of the two scheming virgin killers, but after consulting Shawn's crafty younger sister Poppy (Juliette Goglia), a JV member of the squad, they come up with a showy demonstration of their powers to throw people around, and so, find themselves on the way to Cheer Camp.

After an exhausting bus trip (Nick and Shawn quickly find out that cheerleaders cheer about everything, even riding on busses and eating hamburgers), they make it the vaginal wonderland that is cheerleader camp. When they first arrive, the scene is like something out of a Bollywood musical, with dozens of synchronized cheerleader squads bouncing, jumping and stretching as far as the eyes can see. It is a majestic and impressive sight.

There are a lot of characters involved in this story. There are, of course, the Tigers. There's the virginal head cheerleader Carly, Angela (Haylay Marie Norman, Trailer Park of Terror), the foxy black one, Sylvia (Margo Harshman,), the psychotic neo-goth, and Marcy (Nicole Tubiola), the lesbian. There's the expected rival team, The Panthers, a group of gaunt man-eaters who dress in black, walk in tight formation, and would clearly kill to keep their standing as the number one cheer-squad.

You've got gay kids, including Shawn and Nick's happy go lucky bunkmate Jack (Adhir Kalyan, who, unfortunately, provides the film's only nude scene), a bunch of slapstick-y mascots, a douchebag boyfriend (more on him later) and two camp counselors, husband and wife team Keith (John Michael Higgins) and Diora (Molly Sims).


Nick immediately decides he must have sex with Diora, and launches into as many weird pick-up lines as he can ("So, are you into canopy beds?"). Interestingly, Nick's relentless cougar-hunt is flecked with ageist jokes, i.e. "It shouldn't be too hard to bag her, she's ancient! She's gotta be 30!" The irony of those lines is that the rubber-faced Olsen was already in his 30's himself when they shot Fired Up. It is, of course, a grand tradition in teen sex comedies to insert older actors into teenage roles - 1991's Virgin High starred Linnea Quigley as a Catholic high school girl, and she was 33 at the time - but Fired Up is especially shameless about Olsen. There are scenes where he's shot in sun-drenched close-ups, and you can clearly see his proto-crow's feet.

Coach Keith, not surprisingly, is a highlight of the film. John Michael Higgins has, at this point, developed his clueless/enthusiastic/possibly gay routine into a character that's as seamlessly all-consuming as Robert Englund in his Freddy Krueger days. If he did have a script, he clearly didn't need it. Coach amps up his gang of cheer-girls with a confusing and rambling opening monologue that ends with an inappropriate story about how the doctor told his mother that he burst out of her vagina already waving his "Spirit hands". When he's met with blank stares from the girls, he tries to laugh it off.
"Um, That was a joke," he says. "Except it really happened."

Because you always have to have a love story in these films, Shawn starts to fall for the head cheerleader, Carly, but she's dating a college guy, Rick (David Walton, another 30 year old). Rick is the classic teen sex com ass-head. A pre-med student, he refers to himself as 'Dr. Rick' ("Why prolong the inevitable?), drives a flashy convertible, and listens exclusively to tacky 90's hits. Just when you think you've gotten Chumbawamba and Deep Blue Something's 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' out of your skull, there's Dr fucking Dickface to shove it back in. Of course, Rick is also cheating on Carly. Fired Up piles so many ugly attributes on Rick that he's more of a caricature then a real character, but still, you'll definitely want to punch him in the mouth.

Meanwhile, life goes on at cheer camp. Routines are developed and rivalries sharpen.

After scoring with an abundance of cheerleaders (all they do is make-out in this PG-rated world, but close enough for rock n' roll) Shawn starts to develop a conscience. Nick, on the other hand, cons an entire squad to strip to their scivvies and frolic in a lake (Jack tags along and goes for the full monty). So far, Fired Up has been relatively conflict-free, so when the third-act drama shows up, it seems especially contrived, but whatever. Dr Rick discovers that the boys had plans to leave the camp after two weeks, bailing on the Tigers before the climactic cheerleading competition. Why? Because a guy can only deal with so much pussy, apparently, before he wants to go home and pound beers with his idiot friends.
"It's like the all you can eat breadsticks at Olive Garden," Nick explains to Shawn. "After awhile, you're full, and suddenly you're wondering what you're doing in this restaurant surrounded by fat people."
After presenting the evidence to Carly and Coach Keith, Shawn and Nick are sent packing. Dejected, they attempt to go back to their moronic jock lives, but Shawn is too smitten, and Nick still hasn't scored with Molly Sims, so they make the heroic trek back to Cheer Camp. Will they make it in time for the competition? Will they pull off the nearly impossible 'Fountain of Troy' maneuver? And will Shawn finally bone Coach Diora?


Probably. Things usually work out for cheerleaders.

In summation: Funny and as raunchy as you can get with a PG rating, which, given its central theme, was a strange choice to make. Clearly, the premise had the potential for full-on raunch on an almost nuclear scale. Still, the script (By first-time screenwriter Freedom Jones, whose name annoys me) is surprisingly witty and flecked with lots of Apatow-esque improvisation, especially from the awesomely snarky 13 year old Goglia, and even if they're fully clothed, there's a veritable feast of eye-candy on display, including Reomer, who is beyond adorable.

Gimme an F notwithstanding, you rarely go wrong with a cheerleader movie, and Fired Up is no exception. Laughs, witty lines, and PG-rated boners...what more could you ask for?

Well, you could ask for tits. But besides that, I mean.

Availability: as of this writing, Fired Up is still in theaters.

Clip: Fired Up trailer

- Ken McIntyre

Campus Man (1987)

Directed by Ron Casden
Starring Jim Dye, Kim Delaney, Morgan Fairchild
PG
USA

"If I see 30 dwarves coming out of a Volkswagon, you're dead meat."

In Campus Man, an opportunistic huckster named Todd (John Dye) finds himself in a proverbial pickle when his scholarship at Arizona State falls through, and he's left with a $10,000 tuition bill. He's given a 30-day grace period to scrape up the dough, or he'll be expelled. His previous get-rich-quick scheme, a Girls of ASU calendar, didn't quite pay the bills, so he decides to go the other way completely, and produce a beefcake calendar based on the hunky good looks of his best friend/roommate, swim-team star Brett (Steve Lyon, Valet Girls).

I know what you're thinking: sounds sorta gay porn-y. Well, just wait until the shower scene.

First, however, we meet Cactus Jack. Mr. Jack (Miles O'Keefe, the vine-swinger himself from 1981 howler Tarzan, the Ape Man) is some sort of mysterious loan-shark who advertises on bright yellow flyers. Todd finds one after being tossed out of every bank in Phoenix and meets the glowering man-in-black in the desert. Jack (Or 'CJ', as Todd likes to call him) wears tight jeans and hair-gel and carries around a briefcase full of cash and a gun.

Todd explains his idea for an all-male pin-up calendar to CJ, and at first, he is not so into it. "You got the wrong guy for that kinda shit," he growls. But Todd eventually wears him down and he hands him $12,000 in cash, which our bright-eyed entrepreneur must pay back in 30 days with 30% interest. If not, "We'll meet back here," hisses CJ. "Only we won't have as much fun."
I'm not sure what that means. Sorta felt like sodomy would be involved.

Money secured, Todd needs to find a willing crew to produce his calendar, so he begs his frienemy Molly (the Molly Ringwald-esque Kathleen Wilhoite, instantly recognizable from her role as the screwy punk rock medium Zarabeth in Witchboard (1986), editor of the school paper, to help him. She agrees, and from there, it's a man-hunt. Todd finds a bunch of willing calendar boys from the school's various sports teams, but has yet to convince Brett. So he barges in on the dude while he's taking a shower with the rest of the swim team.

This is not the first time a teen comedy has had a men's shower scene - there's one in genre classic The Cheerleaders (1970). But in that, the dudes were lathering up Stephanie Fondue. And she's nowhere to be found in this one.

Brett agrees (there's an uncomfortable on-his-knees moment there, when Todd feigns an injury) and they get to work. The next several minutes are taken up with the calendar shoot, shot 80's montage style, while Timbuk 3's "My Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades" plays on the soundtrack. It was at that moment when I remembered that, besides the Replacements and a decent hairline, I really kinda hated the 80's. The calendar-release party Todd throws afterward, where people drink Perrier and dance to Corey Hart and chubby girls with seriously bad hair primp in the bathroom mirror, certainly does not help.


At this point, you may be wondering if there are girls in this at all. Well, there's one. Future primetime TV star Kim Delaney (NYPD Blue, CSI, Law and Order, etc) is Dayna, Brett's love interest. But we only get a couple glimpses of her, and even then...where'd that bathing suit come from, 1956?

Meanwhile, over in New York City, Katherine Van Buren (Morgan Fairchild!) is holding court at Image Magazine. "We need a new image at Image," she says. She explains her new concept to her staff: she wants to find a "Man of the 80s" to splatter all over their January 1988 issue and then exploit on shows like 'Letterman and Donahue.' I don't know what she's talking about, but somehow, she got a copy of Todd's Calendar and decides to use Brett as her Man of the 80's. This comes at a good time, because after he paid his tuition, Todd had no money left to pay Cactus Jack, and now has to give him double the dough or it's sodomy-in-the-desert time. Van Buren takes them out drinking and does her best to talk Brett into it.

Despite the profit potential, Brett doesn't want to do it, because it would upset his precious diving team, but when he finds a threatening letter from Cactus Jack, he decides to help his insistent friend out. He signs the contract and then competes in a diving competition. The way they shot it, it seemed like there was at least a 10% chance that he'd smack his head on the diving board and die, bringing a merciful end to Campus Man, but alas, he scored "9 Bingo".

So, Brett finds out that because he signed the Image contract, he's off the team. Some bullshit about his amateur status. He gets so mad at Todd that he moves out.
"Our friendship was really special," he sniffs. "It didn't need anything from the outside."
With a tear in his eye, he picks up his bag, says, "I think we should just avoid each other for now. I just need some time to think."
This is a conversation between two dudes, mind you.

Luckily, he runs into Dayna and makes out with her, and then Todd goes to a biker bar and gets his stupid face mashed, which alleviated a bit of the homoeroticism gently wafting through this film. But then Cactus Jack saves him, and we're back to man-on-man awkwardness.
"You know, Todd," Molly says, as she slaps a cold steak on his swollen eye, "Everything about you is undesirable."
Yeah, exactly.

A bunch of stuff happens, and there's a surprise ending. Cactus Jack takes the gel out his hair to reveal some kind of Eastern European mullet. That's not the surprise, but it was sorta surprising.

Oh, and there's one of those giant 80's mobile phones. Those are always interesting.

Devoid of nudity, laughs, or fun of any kind, Campus Man has nonetheless maintained a cult following over the years. I can only assume that this cult is comprised of gay adolescent males and Morgan Fairchild fetishists. And there's probably a lot of overlap between those two groups.


Director Ron Casden did not make another film, but he did direct The Eyes Have It, a make-up application how-to video by Donna Mills. Which explains everything, really.

Availability: Campus Man is available on DVD.

-Ken McIntyre

Zeta One (1969)

AKA The Love Factor
Alien Women
Directed by Michael Cort
Starring Dawn Addams, Robin Hawdon, James Robertson Justice
Rated R
UK

"Well, this is the most ridiculous story I've ever heard."

Zeta One's opening credits are pretty incredible. Not only do they use that instantly recognizable Rollerball font, they've got all these dramatic-looking topless women posed in skimpy futuristic outfits while a freaked-out spacerock/psych-jazz tune by Johnny Hawksworth warbles away. Far out. The credits note that Zeta One is based on Zeta Magazine, one of erotica photographer Michael Glassman's many short-run books of the era. Zeta was a photo-essay mag that featured, as the opening credits do, scantily-clad spacegirls in Fumetti-type adventures. Zeta One is based on one such ribald tale. It was most likely also inspired by the Bond films, given its 'suave' secret agent, and Barbarella, another comic book-y space-chick come to life.

James Word (Robin Hawdon) is a top-secret agent with a press-on mustache and a decidedly low-rent (but mod!) pad. He walks in to said pad one afternoon to find Ann Olsen (Yutte Stensgaard, Lust for a Vampire), his top-top secret boss W's private secretary, sitting in his futuristic egg chair. They exchange some hilariously vague dialogue, sip some scotch, and then Ann unlooses her blouse.

James thinks he's got this one stitched-up, but she won't budge until he tells her how his recent mission in Scotland went. He refuses, and then changes the subject, suggesting a game of strip poker. She agrees, and he says, "One should always play cards in style, don't you think?"
And then he walks over to one of the flimsiest card tables I've ever seen.

Astonishingly, they play poker almost in real time. Sure, Ann eventually gets naked, and it's a delightful sight, but they sit there playing cards for over twenty minutes. Were it not for Stengaard's gorgeous teacup tits and Hawksworth's bouncy score, this scene would start to feel like some sort of punishment. After playing for two hours with no clear winner, James has had enough.
"This is ridiculous," he says. I agree with him.
James decides to just cut the cards. Whoever wins chooses their next activity. Ann gets the higher card and tells James she wants to talk about his recent mission.
"Very well," he says. "We'll talk about the mission. In bed."
This fucker knows how to operate.
After sex n' smokes, James launches into his cockamamie tale.

There is a place called Angvia, you see. No one knows where it is, exactly. As James tells Ann, "I think its out in space somewhere. Or perhaps it's not."
At any rate, Angvia is an all-girl colony/planet, and it's populated by Earth women who have been snatched from all corners of the planet and brainwashed into becoming whatever fancy hairdo'd Zeta (Stella Stevens look-alike Dawn Addams, RIP), queen of the Angvians, wants them to be.

Clearly, all this girl-snatching cannot go on, so the mysterious Major Bourdin (James Roberston Justice, RIP) dispatches the skittish Don Knotts-esque Swyne (Carry On vet Charles Hawtrey, RIP) to follow the Angvian kidnappers around London. They're pretty easy to spot, since they wear matching orange velour mini-dresses and go-go boots.

Swyne figures out who they plan to abduct next - a stripper named Edwina Strain (Wendy Lingham) - and brings her back to Bourdin's office. Bourdin informs of about the sinister plot developing around her and asks her to take a capsule that will serve as a homing device. They want Edwina to infiltrate the Angvians so they can swoop in and bust up/take over the operation.

Meanwhile, an agent from yet another secret governmental department is spying on Bourdin and company. He reports his findings to W (Lionel Murton, RIP), who calls up James while he's busy banging two blondes to tell him what's up. So that's a lot of intrigue.

Zeta dispatches Clotho (Hungarian cutie Anna Gael) to distract James while the velour girls snatch Edwina off the street, shoot her in the ass with a tranquilizer, and dump her in the back of their car. When she wakes up, she's in Angvia. She's stripped naked and carried on a stretcher to a machine that looks not unlike the people-mush machine in Ted V Mikel's Corpse Grinders, only instead of being turned into cat food, she floats around in a psychedelic light show.

Um, also meanwhile, Angvian spy Zara (Carol Hawkins, Confessions of a Pop Performer) is caught snooping around Bourdin's estate. They strip her down to her skivvies and force her up into the attic, where they attempt to interrogate her.

The attic appears to have several women held against their will, suggesting that Major Bourdin is actually some kind of villain in disguise. Zeta dispatches Clotho to save her. It is at this point where you realize they're just making all this up as they go along.

Edwina survives the naked light show, and after informing Zeta that she knows zilch about Bourdin or anybody else, she's given a tour of the colony, including the "Self-reflection Room" which is not even a room, it's just a sheet of tinfoil that they shake in front of her while a theremin whistles away on the soundtrack. Later on, they show her their training room, where topless girls wearing ropes and purple panties wrestle. They try to bring her to the "Conditioning Room" for brainwashing, but she escapes in an air vent. Her freedom is short-lived, however. She is no match for the Kung Fu Space Girls!

Back on Earth (unless we're already on Earth...who the fuck knows, at this point?), Zara is getting tortured by Bourdin and his stooges. She manages to break free and makes a run for it, but falls off the roof and dies (not really). Clotho shows up and unscrews a pen, which makes Zara disappear. Bordin nabs Clotho and then he and his men put on Sherlock Holmes caps and grab guns and decide to let her loose in the woods and then hunt her down. Zeta sees all this on her interstellar TV and starts yelling about "Action 69! Do it now!"

And so, our thrilling climax, wherein James (in thigh-high rubber boots), Clotho, Bourdin and his men, a bunch of German shepards, and several titty-girls from outer space all square off in battle. Who will survive, and what will be left of them? And perhaps more importantly, did James just make all this crazy bullshit up to get the luscious Ann in bed?

Shoddy and mostly incomprehensible, Zeta One is nonetheless a consistently entertaining bit of clueless, faux-psychedelic pop-art full of eye-watering set pieces, fuzz-rock guitars, and bare-breasted beauties. There are those among us who would prescribe an anti-feminist slant to Zeta One, given the Amazons-building-a-world-without-men theme of Angvia (an anagram for vagina, if you haven't noticed yet), but it is unlikely that anyone involved thought that deeply about it. I mean, it's a pretty fucking dumb movie, after all.

Zeta Two?
Zeta One did nothing for the careers of anyone involved, including director Cort, who never made another full-length film. Nor did it do much for Michael Glassman and his magazine. Most of the girls went on to do lesbian vampire movies for Hammer, but that probably had more to do with their ample cleavage and willingness to show it than it did with their appearance in this film. A good portion of the male actors were quite a bit older than the women, and are now quite dead. My assumption is that this was not the highlight of their lives, but that it was probably fun while it lasted, what with all the naked girls running around.

Availability: Zeta One is available on DVD.

Clip: Zeta One trailer!

PS: Subscribe to the Boobs podcast, Poor and Weird, to hear our upcoming Zeta One special!

- Ken McIntyre

Pacific Banana (1981)

Directed by John Lamond
Starring Graeme Blundell, Robin Stewart, Luan Peters, Deborah Gray
Rated R
Australia

"Are you two-timing me?"
"Yes, of course I am."

Although they've had very little play in the States over the years, Australia has produced its fair share of Boob Cinema. Most notable was 1973's Alvin Purple, starring muppet-faced Graeme Blundell. A classic male sex fantasy, Purple follows the antics and buffoonery of the titular character, a bungling numbskull blessed with neither looks or personality and yet, he's irresistible to women everywhere. This sort of wish-fulfillment premise occasionally showed up in US films as well, but usually the protagonist had to drink a magic potion or sell his soul to the devil. Not in Australia, mate. Down there, ugly dudes don't need no magical powers to pull the birds. They just fockin' pull 'em.

Alvin Purple spawned a sequel and a television series and laid the groundwork for many a tits-out Aussie romp. Fast forward a decade, and folks still couldn't get enough of Blundell's aw-shucks accidental cocksman, and so, Pacific Banana, an Alvin Purple in reverse sorta riff that borrows heavily from that classic Brit-com conceit: the guy whose dick doesn't work.

Martin (Blundell) is a pilot for Blandings Airlines. That's the good news. The bad news is, he suffers from a very particular form of erectile dysfunction. Every time he starts to get amorous with a woman, he sneezes and blows his load. It's a pretty revolting development. When the boss's wife, Lady Blandings (Audine Leith) attempts to seduce him during a private flight, she's thwarted by his wet noodle, so she has him fired. Since similar circumstances have hobbled many a Blandings pilot, Sir Harry Blandings (Alan Hopsgood) shows Martin a little kindness and gets him a co-pilot gig at Banana Airlines, the absolute bottom-scrapers at the Melbourne airport.

Paul (Robin Stewart, Get Crazy), the captain of Banana Airlines' flagship plane, the Pacific Banana, has the exact opposite problem as Martin: he can't stop banging women. When we meet him, he's in bed with a purring Swedish chick while he talks his way out of it on the phone with his fiancés, sexy stews Mandy (Alyson Best) and Sally (Deborah Gray, who also wrote the amazing theme song).

He's somehow engaged to both of the Banana's stewardesses. Is that illegal in Australia? Could be, they're pretty manly down there.

After getting molested by a big-breasted woman who gives him a ride to the airport, Martin meets Paul and his horny gang and sees what he'll be flying for now on. The Pacific Banana is a battered, bright yellow propeller plane that flies from Australia to various island paradises, including Tahiti. "The Spirit of '35" is painted on the nose, which is not very comforting in 1980. As Martin straps in for his first flight, Paul asks him if he's scared. He shakes his head.
"Well, you ought to be," winks Paul. As the plane starts up, Martin looks out the window to see the mechanic on the tarmac praying.

Mandy and Sally wear yellow dresses with slits that go up to their waists. Before the plane takes off, they struggle to secure all the overhead baggage, offering the perfect view for the wrinkly old men and pervy priests on board to ogle them. Meanwhile, our narrator, Martin's fairy godfather, chuckles maniacally on the soundtrack. I'm not sure why we need a narrator, but the whole set-up is pretty awesomely creepy.

I should mention the subplot here. Sir Harry's teenage daughter Julia (Helen Hemingway, who was pushing 30 at the time) stows herself away on every Banana flight. She's attempting to run away from home. Although her disguises and hiding places are relatively clever (an old biddy, a coffin) she continually gets caught, and Martin hands her over to whatever counts as authority on the various islands they land in. The assumption is that this will all lead up to something later, because she serves no real purpose for 95% of the film's running time.

After Paul nips off to have sex with the stews, and after Martin is through tying up Julia and calming down a hysterical, matronly passenger by massaging her giant breasts (it's the only thing that will get her to stop screamining) the bedraggled crew finally gets to its first destination, Tahiti. While there, Paul tries to cure Martin's problem by taking him to an exotic brothel called the House of Joy, where the ladies offer their customers bizarre scenarios like 'The Missionary' (they have sex in a boiling pot), or "The Tarzan' (I think monkeys are involved). Martin is clearly not built for this sort of sex-play. He opts for the rather pedestrian sex-on-a-waterbed option, but sneezes before they can get to business.

Paul is then obliged to bang the island girl himself. Then he goes back to his bungalow and bangs his two fiancés/employees. Paul's fuck-everything routine gets pretty tiresome after awhile.

The following day, Paul sits in the Banana Airlines offices, plotting his next sexual conquest. In stomps Candy Bubbles (Hammer horror hottie Luan Peters) in a low-cut blue dress that accentuates her ample bosom.
"Oh, Christ," says Paul. You will, too.
"Yes, I know they're big," she acknowledges. "Now, take a good look, so we can get down to business."
Candy wants to use the Pacific Banana as the go-to charter plane for her hedonistic resort, Club Candy. Paul agrees - how could he not? - and soon enough, the Banana is packed to the rafters with young nubiles looking for an exotic week in the tropics.

What with all those women on board, you'd expect something sexy to happen. But just when you least expect it, a banana cream pie fight breaks out on the plane. This goes on at least twice as long as usual, so apparently Australians think food fights are uproarious.

After a lengthy cleanup, everyone ends up at Club Candy. Having overheard Martin's troubles on the plane (the two pilots never seem to notice the loudspeaker is on when they talk about sex), Candy offers to help him. She lets him loose in a pile of naked girl-flesh with a paintbrush and they all get squishy creating body-art.

At first it appears to be working, but then he sneezes, and the fun is over. Determined to crack this nut, Candy sends her girls in wave after wave to Martin's room to get a rise out of him. There's a fraulein in leather, a two-girl combo and even a brunette in the bathtub, but nothing works.

Candy realizes, with some amount of trepidation, that she's going to have to handle this one herself.
"For his sake, I will perform the ritual of the sleeping giant," she announces.
"Oh no," squeaks one of the girls. "If it gets out of control, every man on the island will be driven mad with lust!"
"Believe me, I know how risky it is," she says, somberly. "Pray for us both."

The ritual involves dudes playing conga drums blindfolded while Candy does a strip dance in front of Martin. By the way, Luan Peters' may have the most perfect set of double-Ds since Supervixen herself, Shari Eubank. And that's saying something. Those are some prime 70's tits, and it's no wonder that the whole island goes bananas when she starts shaking them around. The islanders all start fucking in the sand, trees topple over, and a volcano erupts. But does the dance work for Martin? And what does all of this have to do with our plucky teenage stowaway?

Hey man, that's for me to know and you to find out. Although it's all pretty obvious.

Pacific Banana is never quite as funny as you'd like it to be, even though it tries, desperately, to make you laugh, with every grown-worthy sex-com gag in the book. On the other hand, the women are frequently naked and uniformly gorgeous, in that understated, well-built Aussie sort of way, the scenery is incredible, and the atmosphere is so warm and sunny you practically need to slather on sunblock just to watch it. So I'm not complaining.

PS: Makes an obvious companion piece to the loopy Party Plane.

More Bananas?
25 or so years later, and most of the cast and crew are all still alive, kicking, and making movies. It takes a lot to kill Australians.

Clip: Pacific Banana trailer!

Availability: Pacific Banana is available on DVD.

-Ken McIntyre